Max Verstappen is someone who’s very straightforward with everything he does and feels in the car. The Dutchman is expressive of his engineer if he has a concern and addresses the issue. This is one of the very few similarities between Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, who’s also very vocal and expressive about the problems. And now, at the Monaco GP, the Dutchman imbibed the 7x champs warning that’ll give Christian Horner and Co. a few cold sweats.

Verstappen wasn’t the happiest candidate during the Emilia Romagna GP, or the Miami GP, for that matter. The Dutchman seemed to struggle with the RB20, not having the car speak to him, and being unable to make the tires work. As a result, the Dutchman lost the Miami win to Lando Norris, with the Brit coming within a second of stealing the Imola win away as well. And the struggles don’t seem to end anytime soon as Verstappen lamented during the Monaco GP practice.

Is Max Verstappen feeling the heat?

Lewis Hamilton at the Imola GP complained regarding the balance of his Mercedes after the qualifying, as he explained the car was on a knife’s edge. And now his arch-rival, Max Verstappen, has come out repeating the same words to his engineer, echoing a warning to the team of what might be coming for the Monaco qualifying and race. The Dutchman’s 7-word warning was, “The car is on a knife’s edge.”

The 2023 World Champion was seen striking the barrier at the swimming pool chicane very early in the session, followed by the rear of the car sliding on him throughout the remainder of the session. As a result, Verstappen came super close to crashing out multiple times. Towards the end of the session, he complained about the car being super loose on the bumps. 

However, coming into the Monaco GP, both Helmut Marko and Christian Horner explained how Red Bull is wary of Ferrari’s threat around the Principality.

Helmut Marko backs Christian Horner’s claim of Scuderia around Monaco

Heading into the Monaco GP, everyone expected Ferrari to be strong around the circuit. The high downforce nature with slow corners is exactly what the SF-24 favors. Speaking with the media during the press day, Christian Horner revealed how both McLaren and Ferrari are contenders for Red Bull at Monaco. However, the noise around Ferrari suggests they’ll be the ones to look out for.

Helmut Marko later came on and spoke along the same lines as what Christian Horner expressed. The Red Bull Taskmaster said, “ Yes. We have to take on this challenge. [The challenge of competition from McLaren and Ferrari at Monaco]. But I think the Ferrari will be more of a challenge in Monte Carlo than McLaren, because it’s all about qualifying. We have to take on this challenge, definitely.”

Who do you think will come out on top at the Monaco GP?